


With Rescue So Close

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Series: In Nauseating Variety: Zigoola [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Wild Space - Karen Miller
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, Gen, Sad Ending, The Sith Haunt Him to Death, Zigoola
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 21:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15010013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Padmé rescues Obi-Wan and Bail from an ancient Sith planet that's trying to kill them. Obi-Wan makes it to the ship and no farther.





	With Rescue So Close

 

Obi-Wan's screams shattered through the ship, leaving Padmé gripping the controls with white-knuckled hands as she guided the craft up from Zigoola's surface to make a break for the stars.

In theory she knew the clone medics were some of the best in the galaxy, that they had their full attention on the broken Jedi, that she was of more use  _ here,  _ getting them  _ away  _ than there  _ in  _ the way—

But if anything  _ happened  _ to him—

_ More  _ happened to him, rather—

_ I would never forgive myself. _

And not  _ just  _ because of Anakin.

Obi-Wan was her friend too.

She almost hadn't recognized him when they found them.

Bail and Obi-Wan, but especially Obi-Wan, lying glassy-eyed and feverish against a boulder, blood-stained makeshift bandages tied around the saber wound in his thigh.

Saber wound.

_ They said no one was here. How did he get it? _

When the clones lifted Obi-Wan to carry him to the ship, the way his fingers clutched Bail's hand, his expression through his choked gasps of pain—

They'd gone from barely able to stand one another to Bail being the one he desperately clung to in his agony.

“We're going to get you home,” Bail had promised then. “I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere.”

The cries had fallen silent by the time they reached hyperspace and Padmé could leave the cockpit. She worked her way aft, afraid of what she might find when she reached the clutch of clones.

She found Bail stumbling out of the medical area, face blanched and green. Her heart knew at one glance what  _ that  _ meant, but she rushed forward anyway.

Somewhere behind her Bail wretched, the wet sound meaning he'd brought up whatever little had been in his stomach.

In the doorway Padmé froze.

Between the huddled clones she could only see a tattered and bloodstained foot.

Not moving.

One of the men looked up, then stepped aside, and Padmé caught sight of the rest of Obi-Wan.

Vacant eyes stared up at nothing, and now, his body no longer obscured by anything but his undershorts, the extent of his destruction lay clear.

A brutal saber wound in his thigh. A clearly broken knee. Terrible lacerations on feet, lower legs, hands, and arms, as if he'd fallen again and again on sharp rock.

And worst? Not a wound at all, but the way his skin seemed caved in, as if he'd passed through months of starvation instead of days.

That planet had torn him apart from the inside out, and the single tear that lay on the med table was a drop of blood.

The clones filed out of the room, recognizing her shock and dismay.

How was Anakin going to survive this?

For a long moment she couldn't move, and then her feet pressed her forward, her heart needing to do  _ something, _ to help  _ somehow.  _ So she dampened a cloth and wiped the traces of that last tear from his eyelashes, gently closed his eyes, and scrubbed his skin to clear away the dried, flaked blood from days of pain. She washed his hair and beard as well as she could manage, given this room hadn't been meant for that.

The open wounds that would never heal she cleansed, and when the corpse had been treated as tenderly as she knew how, she draped a sheet over it. Over  _ him. _

Tears burned Padmé's eyes.

_ Oh, Ani. I'm sorry. _

 

 


End file.
